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RIP Bob Jacobsen
Sep. 25th, 2007 10:11 amJacobsen's store was an anachronism even in 1992, when I arrived in Northfield to go to college. It was a tiny dry-goods store on Division Street, the main street of downtown Northfield. When my father heard my descriptions of the store, he said it sounded just like the store his grandfather, and then later his uncle, owned -- which had gone out of business in the 1970s, I think, along with 99% of the other small-time general stores in the U.S.
Jacobsen's somehow survived. It had approximately half the floor space of my local 24-hour Walgreens, I think, and yet somehow managed a credible department store product line. One of the first things a lot of students purchased there was a floor pillow -- he had a big sign in his window that said "SALE! Floor pillows, $10.99!" (The sign was permanent, as far as I could tell.) You could buy clothing there, bedding, fabric and patterns, towels, Scouting uniforms. (The obituary mentioned that Mr. Jacobsen was an Eagle Scout.) Each item was stocked only in small quantities, but he had almost everything. If you needed mittens in March, when the K-Mart down the road in Dundas had ditched their winter inventory for bathing suits and beach towels, Jacobsen's could fix you up.
They didn't have the lowest prices, but they offered excellent value for money. Before going to Nepal, I went to Jacobsen's to buy a rain poncho. I'd bought a rain poncho for $3 at K-Mart during the spring of my freshman year, for field trips in my Geology class. I think that poncho lasted for exactly one rainstorm, and also came down barely to my waist, so it didn't do much to keep me dry. I wanted something that would hold up better, and one of Mr. Jacobsen's old ladies (nearly all his employees were old ladies) quickly produced a sturdy, bright yellow poncho for $25 that covered me almost to my ankles. I think the only time I went in and asked for something that they weren't able to produce from a Rubbermaid box on the back of a shelf somewhere was the time I was shopping for a down comforter for my bed. Mr. Jacobsen told me that he'd found that he just couldn't be competetive with down items.
Naturally, they offered old-fashioned customer service in their old-fashioned store. A gaggle of old ladies would help you find whatever obscure item you were looking for; Mr. Jacobsen would ring up your purchase and chat with you as he carefully put everything in a bag. (When I bought the poncho while heading to Nepal, he told me at length about his friend whose son owned a restaurant over there. The son was Mike of Mike's Breakfast. He wanted me to track Mike down and tell him that Bob Jacobsen said hi.) On at least one occasion, I was in there with Ed; Mr. Jacobsen rang up my purchase and then handed it to Ed to carry home for me.
They were closed on Sundays, but a tiny hand-written sign near the door said that if you had an after-hours emergency need for something, you could call Mr. Jacobsen at home and he'd come open the store to sell you whatever it was. I almost used this one time. I was officiating at a friend's wedding the day after her graduation, and we realized on her wedding day -- a Sunday morning -- that she had no white nylons or tights. We almost called him -- I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he would have come straight to the store to sell us a $5 item at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, given that it was for a wedding -- but paused first to have her put on the dress, at which point we realized that it didn't matter what she wore on her legs as the dress covered her down to her feet. She may have gone on to get married barefoot or in sneakers, I can't remember.
Jacobsen's closed in 2005. Mr. Jacobsen's son had taken over running it by then. One of the biggest issues with stores like this, according to my father, who was well-acquainted with the reasons his grandfather's store had ultimately failed, was not the customers so much as the suppliers. Hanes underwear wants to sell you underwear by the pallet, not ten or even a hundred pairs at a time. Even if customers are willing to pay a premium for attentive service -- which many are, it turns out, given that Jacobsen's survived as long as it did -- you can't sell them products if you can't get them. Hardware stores survived by forming co-ops -- Ace, Hardware Hank -- but the tiny main-street dry-goods stores have pretty much all died out.
And now Mr. Jacobsen is gone, too. It's the end of an era. I hope they come up with a good way to honor his memory during the Defeat of Jesse James Days next year.
Jacobsen's somehow survived. It had approximately half the floor space of my local 24-hour Walgreens, I think, and yet somehow managed a credible department store product line. One of the first things a lot of students purchased there was a floor pillow -- he had a big sign in his window that said "SALE! Floor pillows, $10.99!" (The sign was permanent, as far as I could tell.) You could buy clothing there, bedding, fabric and patterns, towels, Scouting uniforms. (The obituary mentioned that Mr. Jacobsen was an Eagle Scout.) Each item was stocked only in small quantities, but he had almost everything. If you needed mittens in March, when the K-Mart down the road in Dundas had ditched their winter inventory for bathing suits and beach towels, Jacobsen's could fix you up.
They didn't have the lowest prices, but they offered excellent value for money. Before going to Nepal, I went to Jacobsen's to buy a rain poncho. I'd bought a rain poncho for $3 at K-Mart during the spring of my freshman year, for field trips in my Geology class. I think that poncho lasted for exactly one rainstorm, and also came down barely to my waist, so it didn't do much to keep me dry. I wanted something that would hold up better, and one of Mr. Jacobsen's old ladies (nearly all his employees were old ladies) quickly produced a sturdy, bright yellow poncho for $25 that covered me almost to my ankles. I think the only time I went in and asked for something that they weren't able to produce from a Rubbermaid box on the back of a shelf somewhere was the time I was shopping for a down comforter for my bed. Mr. Jacobsen told me that he'd found that he just couldn't be competetive with down items.
Naturally, they offered old-fashioned customer service in their old-fashioned store. A gaggle of old ladies would help you find whatever obscure item you were looking for; Mr. Jacobsen would ring up your purchase and chat with you as he carefully put everything in a bag. (When I bought the poncho while heading to Nepal, he told me at length about his friend whose son owned a restaurant over there. The son was Mike of Mike's Breakfast. He wanted me to track Mike down and tell him that Bob Jacobsen said hi.) On at least one occasion, I was in there with Ed; Mr. Jacobsen rang up my purchase and then handed it to Ed to carry home for me.
They were closed on Sundays, but a tiny hand-written sign near the door said that if you had an after-hours emergency need for something, you could call Mr. Jacobsen at home and he'd come open the store to sell you whatever it was. I almost used this one time. I was officiating at a friend's wedding the day after her graduation, and we realized on her wedding day -- a Sunday morning -- that she had no white nylons or tights. We almost called him -- I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he would have come straight to the store to sell us a $5 item at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, given that it was for a wedding -- but paused first to have her put on the dress, at which point we realized that it didn't matter what she wore on her legs as the dress covered her down to her feet. She may have gone on to get married barefoot or in sneakers, I can't remember.
Jacobsen's closed in 2005. Mr. Jacobsen's son had taken over running it by then. One of the biggest issues with stores like this, according to my father, who was well-acquainted with the reasons his grandfather's store had ultimately failed, was not the customers so much as the suppliers. Hanes underwear wants to sell you underwear by the pallet, not ten or even a hundred pairs at a time. Even if customers are willing to pay a premium for attentive service -- which many are, it turns out, given that Jacobsen's survived as long as it did -- you can't sell them products if you can't get them. Hardware stores survived by forming co-ops -- Ace, Hardware Hank -- but the tiny main-street dry-goods stores have pretty much all died out.
And now Mr. Jacobsen is gone, too. It's the end of an era. I hope they come up with a good way to honor his memory during the Defeat of Jesse James Days next year.
